Doctoral Dissertation Research: Effects of age of acquisition in emerging sign languages

博士论文研究：新兴手语习得年龄的影响

• 批准号: 2335955
• 负责人: Rachel Mayberry
• 金额: $ 1.6万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-03-01 至 2025-02-28
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2335955&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Effects; age

One of the basic functions of grammar in a language is to mark who does what to whom, which is referred to as argument ordering. This is critical information for users of the language to communicate, but previous research has not identified where such grammatical marking of arguments comes from in language. Children exposed to an established language acquire the language specific grammar at a young age, but what happens when children are not exposed to a language with this grammar? Around 95% of deaf children around the world are born into hearing families who do not sign. Age of first exposure to language for these individuals varies widely and often occurs in educational settings, if at all. When deaf children are gathered without access to a sign language, the communication system they develop will become a new sign language over generations of users. This doctoral dissertation project examines the effects of age of exposure and age of language on the development of argument structure by looking at the development of word order as grammatical marking in three sign languages of various ages. Two of the three sign languages have not been documented previously and are less than 40 years old. Along with training of a doctoral student, this project will engage underrepresented individuals in scientific research and raise public awareness about emerging sign languages.The three studies use video recordings of sign language users describing pictures. The stimuli are carefully controlled to include different event types and both animate and inanimate arguments. Recordings are annotated for word order and any other potential grammatical devices used by the signers. Statistical analyses are used to determine how age of language exposure impacts the use of these grammatical devices in each of the three languages. Furthermore, differences between groups in the studies of this dissertation highlight interacting effects of both age of the emerging language and the age at which children enter the signing community on argument ordering. By looking at these factors in these unique situations, this project adds to the scientific understanding of the origins of argument ordering in language and the role of early access to language in that process.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

语法中语法的基本功能之一是标记谁对谁做的事，这被称为参数排序。这是对语言用户进行交流的关键信息，但是以前的研究尚未确定这种论证的语法标记来自语言。暴露于既定语言的孩子在年轻时就获得了特定语言的语法，但是当儿童不接受这种语法的语言时会发生什么？世界各地约有95％的聋哑儿童出生于听不清的家庭。这些人的初次接触语言的年龄差异很大，并且经常发生在教育环境中。当聋哑儿童无法使用手语时，他们开发的通信系统将成为几代用户的新手语。该博士学位论文项目通过将单词顺序的开发作为语法标记作为不同年龄的三种符号语言的语法标记来研究，语言年龄和语言年龄对论证结构的发展的影响。三种符号语言中的两种尚未记录在以前，还不到40年。除了培训博士生的培训外，该项目还将吸引代表性不足的人参与科学研究，并提高公众对新兴的标志语言的认识。这三项研究使用了描述图片的手语用户的视频记录。仔细控制刺激，包括不同的事件类型以及动画和无生命的论点。单词顺序和签名者使用的任何其他潜在语法设备的记录是注释的。统计分析用于确定语言暴露年龄如何影响三种语言中每种语法设备的使用。此外，在本论文的研究中，群体之间的差异突出了新兴语言年龄的相互作用和儿童在争论秩序上进入签字社区的年龄的相互作用。通过在这些独特的情况下查看这些因素，该项目增加了对语言中论证秩序起源的科学理解以及在该过程中早期访问语言的作用。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的审查标准通过评估来通过评估来支持的。